C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

There's that word again! "Vetted."

If you've been following the Syrian situation for the past couple of years, you'll know that word well. We are constantly being told that "our" rebels are vetted. Every so often, journalists reveal that "our" vetted rebels are working with (or giving weapons to) Al Qaeda or ISIS -- at which point, the administration says "Oopsie!" We are then assured that from now on, "our" rebels will receive some extra-special super-duper vetting.

Here's an important fact which CNN hides from you: It doesn't take much effort to link the Syrian Arab Coalition to extreme jihadis.

Don't take my word for it: Fire up Google and take a close look at the groups which make up that coalition. In nearly every case, one small tug of the string is all it takes. You'll be led straight into a dark world populated with religious extremists, drug smugglers, mad bombers and other lovelies.

Want to see a couple of examples?

1. Ansar al-Sharia. Not a very encouraging name, is it? Yet these guys are a big part of this Syrian Arab Coalition that Obama just armed. And looky here:

Their aim is to take Aleppo then work with other groups to govern the city according to sharia law.

Sharia law. Let that sink in. These are the guys Obama just weaponized, folks.

On Thursday, 13 Islamist fighting groups and al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, came together to launch a co-ordinated assault on several fronts.

A statement said the aim of the new coalition, called Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), was "the liberation of Aleppo and its countryside", after which they would work with other groups to govern the city according to Islamic law.

Again: Let that sink in. Obama just armed Al Qaeda.

The fact that the conservative media refuses to criticize a Democratic president for arming Al Qaeda tells you that the right-wing "alternative" media is no alternative at all. It's all controlled.

And why aren't any of the Republican candidates making political use of this turn of events? Obama just armed freakin' Al Qaeda!

2. Jaish al-Nasr. Another member of the ever-so-"vetted" Syrian Arab Coalition is Jaish al-Nasr. This organization is run by a Saudi-funded extremist named Abdo-Sattar Rigi, who was previously connected with an anti-Iran terror group called Jundollah. That murderous organization was founded by Rigi's brother, who was captured and executed by the Iranians.

During the Bush years, the U.S. placed Jundollah (also spelled Jundallah) on the official list of terrorist organizations -- which did not stop the CIA from funding their various murders and bombings. See here and here. Also see what Wikipedia has to say:

The group has been designated a terrorist organization by Iran, New Zealand[16] and the United States... and it has been linked to, and taken credit for numerous acts of terror, kidnapping and the smuggling of narcotics. According to many sources, the group is linked to al-Qaeda.

But while the memos show that the United States had barred even the most incidental contact with Jundallah, according to both intelligence officers, the same was not true for Israel’s Mossad. The memos also detail CIA field reports saying that Israel’s recruiting activities occurred under the nose of U.S. intelligence officers, most notably in London, the capital of one of Israel’s ostensible allies, where Mossad officers posing as CIA operatives met with Jundallah officials.

The officials did not know whether the Israeli program to recruit and use Jundallah is ongoing. Nevertheless, they were stunned by the brazenness of the Mossad’s efforts.

"It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with," the intelligence officer said. "Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought."

Cut to: The present day. The same guy who was helping to run Jundollah is now getting a big share of the 50-ton weapons drop.

It's amazing what Obama thinks he can get away with. His arming of jihad is nearly in the open. He apparently doesn't give a damn what we think.

Not only that. It's amazing what CNN, the NYT and the rest of the mainstream American media think they can get away with.

Even though it takes only about an hour of research to find out that this "Syrian Arab Coalition" includes a bunch of maniacs who are no better than ISIS, the media refuses to give you the necessary background. You won't get the investigative journalism you need from CNN, from the NYT, from the WP -- from any major media publication. This degree of information control is truly astonishing.

Do your own research. Tug on the strings. Then tell us all where the trail leads.

What's in a name? A blogger called Pundita has figured out what's what:

Every time it comes out US is aiding a terror group, they change the group's name

Nusra Front is Out. Syrian Arab Coalition is In. From the following NYT report:

In a letter to the State Department, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. last week, four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — criticized the program. “The Syria Train and Equip Program goes beyond simply being an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars,” the senators wrote. “As many of us initially warned, it is now aiding the very forces we aim to defeat.”

The senators — Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut; Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia; Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico; and Mike Lee, Republican of Utah — were referring to the latest debacle of the program.

Some of the American-trained Syrian fighters gave at least a quarter of their United States-provided equipment to the Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front, the United States Central Command acknowledged in late September

What do the senators mean by "now" aiding? It was from the beginning, which is how the world got Nusra Front. Don't say you're al Qaeda.

Perhaps it should be pointed out that Hillary while Sec of State advocated that the US support those "moderate" Islamist forces attempting to oust Khadaffi in Libya and Assad in Syria. She succeeded in Libya but just happened to turn that poor country into a failed state. She almost succeeded in Syria but did accomplish empowering ISIS as the leading anti-government force. As Joseph so well documents here al Nusra, which carries the official al Qaida endorsement, remains a major factor. Those are the forces that the CIA supports to this day after Hillary began the program.

The last six years of Middle East upheaval was in part credited on social media. Now that it has become obvious that the more terrible the leader, the more terrible the warring factions under his rule are, hopefully we will see the media take hold of the truth and run with it.

Pee Wee Herman once said on his TV show..."If you want to receive mail, you should send mail". So Joseph, how about some automatic share buttons so links to your articles can be shared elsewhere? DailyPUMA has a few options, it is easy, and it is free, and the share buttons don't share the entire article, just the first paragraph or so with a link back to the originating site.

Do we not have existing laws on the books here in the United States which deal explicitly with providing material support to terrorists? How is it that these draconian anti-terror laws are not being brought to bear upon whomever it is within the defense and/or intelligence community responsible for arming these terrorists? Even if it's the titular president who's making these decisions, you have to ask yourself: Are we a nation of laws or a nation of men?

A current piece in Salon quotes the Iranian foreign minister as asking two good questions regarding the US-created mess in Syria: "Why are you there? Who gave you the right to be there?" Hopefully the Russian aircraft will track our transport planes and strafe the goodies created by the US MIC as soon as they are dropped safely for John McCain's friends, just as they have annihilated many of the color-coordinated Toyota vehicles provided by our State Department.

posted by Muffin : 11:16 AM

James : 11:03 AM

As tricky dick pointed out if the potus does it then it's OK. If you or I do it then it's off to Jail for us little people.

Apparently the Hasbara trolls are at it again.From Sic Semper Tyrannus:

turcopolier said...

Will et al

There is a pattern common to troll attacks; first you have a series of very reasonable sounding comments, then you have increasingly strident comments then at the last if you have not caved in to the point of view expressed you have an all out ad hominem attack in which the attacker writes everything that can be thought of to wound and intimidate. This technique is actually taught by the Israeli foreign ministry's hasbara branch. Often the identity of the attacker is disguised. "Abuabdullah" is located in Canada in a university city there is often an element of mockery involved. I don't for a minute believe all that crap about his being a French Canadian patriot or a Zaydi Shia. That was IMO there to mock me because he had studied my interests and knew those were among them. When all that failed he began to express the belief that my stupidity was the result of old ae and that hopefully I would die soon of a disease of the elderly. The patter was complete. I spared you the worst of the messages at the end. pl

posted by Anonymous : 10:50 PM

Anon, it is true that trolls (not just hasbara trolls) have kinda, sorta ruined political blogging. (The other big problem is, of course, Facebook.) The only way to combat trolls is for the blog owner to moderate comments with a heavy hand

Unfortunately, heavy comment moderation ruins the fun. Political blogging was much more rewarding in the 2004-2008 period.

Pro-Israel trolling is particularly ineffective because the job is mostly given over to kids -- immature and inarticulate kids, racist to the core, seething with resentment and radiating a completely unearned sense of superiority. They're worse than the worst 4chan users. Worse, even, than YouTube commenters.

Israel's online defenders -- or "explainers" -- have done far more harm to that nation's image than I ever have. Amusingly, these kids are so damned full of themselves that they have no idea that they represent their own cause so poorly.

These days, I usually delete hasbara comments on sight. Perhaps I should print them.

The Syrian Arab Coalition 'members' are a pretty disturbing lot. I see the MSM, for the most part, refused to identify them as recipients and then admitted as much without a word of explanation. You're one of the few bloggers that called them out on this.

I also saw something that I thought was a disturbing attempt at deception by confusing the Syrian Arab Coalition and the YPG because of their cooperation in the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room. The claim - by some blogs and commenters - were that the weapons were going to somehow be shared among the SAC and the YPG. This was suppose to be a good thing because the Kurds deserved some arms.

First of all, I highly doubt the YPG part of Euphrates Volcano is anything but a CIA front staffed by some criminal thug-type PDKs that came over during the Kobani reinforcement. The 'real' YPG - the Kobani Rojava Kurds - have little reason to join such a joint operations room. The Kobani Kurds have no desire to travel south and help a bunch of al Nusra head-choppers retake Raqqa from the current (ISIS) head-choppers. That, and these supposed YPG fakers started a little ethnic cleansing campaign around Tel Abyad after they retook it. This is about the most uncharacteristic thing I can think of for the Kobani Rojava Kurds - they would never engage in ethnic cleansing, Arab or otherwise. So I have every reason to suspect these so-called PYD of Euphrates Volcano are anything but Rojava Kurds.

Second of all, the suggestion that the YPG was the recipient of these arms started popping up in unexpected places. A few bloggers too readily bought into the idea that the arms drop was actually good because now the Kobani Rojava Kurds finally got some weapons and ammo. I'm just appalled how easily they forgot that the Kobani Kurds were damn near wiped off the face of the earth less than a year ago while the U.S. sat and watched. Oddly enough, the U.S. did magnanimously step in at the very last minute and level most of Kobani to help the Kurds retake it from ISIS. So to imagine the U.S. would suddenly decide to air drop 50 tons of weapons and ammo to them NOW (thanks a lot!) is just stupid.

The Rojava Kurds and the REAL YPG just want to protect their homes and farms. They don't want to help head-choppers retake Raqqa, and they don't want to fight ISIS to close the Syrian-Turkish border west of Jarabulus. They would like the border closed, but Kobani Kurds have shed plenty of blood just getting their homes back. They're not going to run into the ISIS meat-grinder with small arms and try to single-handedly close the Syrian-Turkish border that is intentionally used by Turkey to resupply ISIS.

I have to wonder about the ulterior motives of people that tout a nonsensical distribution of part of this arms drop to Rojava Kurds who are then going to engage in equally nonsensical distant military campaigns. A few minutes on Google untangling the mish-mash of alliances and changing names will lead one to the same conclusion you have arrived at, Mr. Cannon: this arms drop is going directly to head-choppers (and head-chopper aligned FSA) that want to retake Raqqa and enforce Sharia law, not 'liberate' it.